These haunting images illustrate how close to 50 migrants were hauled to safety from a flimsy rubber boat off Libya

The migrants - many of them children - came close to drowning in the choppy Mediterranean, before they were saved

It was the latest mission carried out by the naval crew on the LÉ Samuel Beckett.

One shows a toddler sucking on a soother while another boy gives the thumbs up, unaware how close the group came to disaster.

The highly-trained personnel plucked 50 migrants from the Med during Thursday night's mission.

The desperate migrants had been travelling on a rubber boat for a better life in Europe when the alarm was raised off the coast of Tripoli, Libya.

The rescue operation began at 8.05pm and all migrants were taken on board the naval vessel by 10.20pm.

A statement from the team said today: “Last night, following a request from the Italian Maritime Rescue Co-Ordination Centre, LÉ Samuel Beckett located and rescued a total of 50 migrants from a rubber vessel during a search and rescue operation conducted 25 Nautical Miles NW of Tripoli.

“The 50 rescued persons have now been transferred to the NGO vessel Bourbon Argos.

“LÉ Samuel Beckett is currently awaiting further tasks in the area of operations.”

Last night’s rescue mission brings to 2,310 the number of migrants saved by the LÉ Samuel Beckett since it was deployed on September 23.

Last month, Irish Defence Forces rescued a tiny baby from an overcrowded wooden barge off the coast of Tripoli, along with 771 migrants.

More than 3,740 migrants have drowned on desperate voyages to Europe so far this year, nearly matching the death toll recorded for all of 2015, when three times as many people took to the seas, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

In September 2015, the harrowing photo of a three-year-old boy lying washed up on an Italian beach, shocked the world.

Little Aylan Kurdi’s corpse was spotted lying in the surf.

The Syrian boy drowned as his refugee family attempted to make the perilous crossing to the safety of European shores - away from war, tyranny and the threat of ISIS terrorists.